FREE Lighthouse or Aerius Wooden Stacking Game (a $29.99 value) with orders $100+. While supplies last. Ends Oct 7th.**
5 Benefits of Playing with Marble Runs
by Chirstina Royston
Building, tinkering, racing, rolling… marble runs are amazing toys for kids.
They allow children to construct, manipulate, engineer, explore, and experiment all while introducing them to a beginning understanding of physical principles! WOW! Kids have been creating marble runs for generations, having fun racing those marbles without even realizing they are gaining skills that will help them for their entire lives. We have compiled five benefits that we think are extra special but the list goes on and on when talking about these STEM toys that stimulate the imagination and engineering principles. We have an incredible range of marble runs for all ages. From our Kullerbu collection to Hubelino, to our wooden marble run sets, you will find all kinds of challenging and fun marble runs to grow with your children.
5 Benefits of Playing with Marble Runs for Kids
1) Marble Runs Expand Creativity
Creativity is one of the most important skills we can encourage in our children. The ability to see solutions in many different ways and to imagine new possibilities are skills that will help your children throughout their lives. Using creative thinking, kids can explore different tracks and set ups and make a new creation every time they play. That is the beauty of these toys, there is no one right way to create and the ability to make changes and imagine different outcomes, makes marble run play even more fun.
2) Building Marble Runs Develops Spatial Awareness
Building a marble run encourages kids to look at space and dimension. That tiny marble has to fit into all kinds of small spaces, tubes, and blocks. Not to mention determining the correct angle to encourage the marble to keep rolling. As they play with marble runs, kids will begin to get an intuitive spatial sense for how the marble moves through space which will extend to their general awareness and understanding of spatial placement.
3) Encouraging Engineering Skills
By placing the different pieces together in a variety of arrangements, your child will be exploring early engineering skills. They will be experimenting with cause and effect and how certain set ups stimulate balance. These trials and errors will demonstrate key concepts like inertia and gravity that either keep the marble moving or stop it on its track.
4) Marble Runs Improve Hand-Eye Coordination
Marble runs provide excellent opportunities to enhance and improve motor skills an d hand-eye coordination. Taking that small marble and dropping it on just the right spot and piecing all of their various track parts together, offers incredible opportunities for children to focus on reaching, assembling, and grasping skills. The repeated motions of dropping the marble and assembling the track stimulate muscle memory and repetitive coordination.
5) Playing with Marble Runs Enhances Problem-Solving Skills
Every time that marble hops off the track, your child will be solving a problem. When it gets stuck, if it moves too fast or too slow… all of these will stimulate your child’s curiosity about what is happening and how they can fix it. The more problems they encounter, the more opportunity they’ll have to come up with creative solutions. And with that effort, will come the pride of sticking it out and seeing challenges to the end, also known as resilience and grit!
We could go on and on about how much we love marble runs but we think you’ve got the idea. These toys not only inspire lots of new skills and benefits but they grow with your children and will continue to change and adapt as they do.
Leave a comment